The Whole: The Dark Half
by LethalMindz
Summary: Several months after the end of the book,  excluding the epilogue  Thad's wife Elizabeth comes to terms with the writer's strange behaviour and their strained relationship.  probably not a really accurate summary   Rated T for non-graphic sexual content


The Whole

(Note)

My apologies for any screw-ups, though this is my favourite book, it has been way to long since I've read it….too the library! Anyway, anything I screw up should be pretty minor, considering this is a cheap one-shot with a pretty elemental theme. On to the story, hope you enjoy it!

PS: These characters/ideas all belong to Stephen King. Only the crappy title belongs to me….sorta.

"Thad, honey, are you still awake?" Elizabeth stood in the doorway, almost frightened to step out into the hall that lay beyond; terrified the if she dared cross the almost holly threshold of the bedroom, the room most sacred to a marriage, she would find what she had expected to find for almost two weeks now. A wiser person, perhaps one who had read too many self-help books or taken some pretentious eastern martial art, would have tried to contain that fear by telling themselves it was ridiculous, unnecessary, and by relying on the fact that it had not manifested itself in reality for two weeks so there was no reason for it do so now. A wiser person, a person who had never been abducted by a figment of her husband's imagination, a woman who had never seen her twin children respond to said murderous villain as if he had been their loving father since their birth, would have returned to the bedroom, or even made her way into the kitchen where she knew her husband now sat to prepare some coffee and ask how the writing was going.

She wrapped her robe tighter around her small frame, she was not a wiser person and feared she never would be, but wisdom did not account for life becoming a frightening tangle of murder and mayhem, more importantly, wisdom didn't account for having an author or an English professor as a husband. So she let her fear feed itself and grow until it had filled the hallway like a theatre screen, stretching into the kitchen to project her horrible doubts and assumptions out towards her. She took a breath and a small step, she was a strong woman, she reminded herself, a woman with two children who had suffered to make it to this point in her life, she had to make this trip one last time, even if it meant divorce she would make it. Afterwards she would simply have to continue struggling along.

Her footsteps were silent on the cool, cheap, industrial carpet and in front of her a reading lamp beamed its orange-gold glow through the kitchen doorway; like a beacon leading her to hell; leading Thad to hell. She stopped halfway and listened closely for the clicking of typewriter keys, prayed even for the clack, clack, clack, or even the slow rolling sound of a ballpoint for editing, but the closer she skulked, the clearer she could make out the definitive scratch of pencil on the thin sheets of a yellow notepad. A wiser person may have broken down and cried herself to sleep in the hallway, but Elizabeth edged slowly closer to the gap in the plaster until she could peer into the half-lit area without disturbing her husband, who as expected, sat quickly and almost violently scribbling out thick black words. Only to add to his black menace of a novel, she though spitefully, no longer glad that she did in fact see her husband in the high-backed oak chair and not his maniac pen name come to life. Understand this, she thought angrily, Stark is dead, gone and done like last winter and he is not coming back.

Thad shifted, humming a suspiciously happy tune as he no doubt dreamt up murder most foul; it made her heart bleed to doubt him, to believe he didn't know what he was doing, but he was risking her sanity by trying to regain his sales and he was slowly killing Thad Beaumont just as he had killed Stark, by melding the original into a twisted imitation of its alter ego.

"Thad, honey, come to bed." She told him, watching as the pencil stopped short, creating a tension in the room capable of snapping its black, glossy shaft. Her husband looked up at her, his eyes, dark with horrible scenes rated for only the sickest fans, watching her as if she were some intruder within his domain, observing every movement, trying to remember. Elizabeth hung her head, this wasn't her husband, he bore no resemblance to the mild mannered, good humoured man she'd fallen for and said her vows to beyond his outward appearance. She could see it in his quizzical face, the blond George Stark (blond was the way she knew Thad really imagined him, blonde like Machine) wasn't sitting at their kitchen table, neither was Thad Beaumont, this was some twisted combination of both; more real and cruel than either were when separate. She could even hear the words in her head "_You are disturbing the peaceful mood I'm in. You are destroying the frame of mind I'm in. You are disturbing my peaceful frame of mind"._ But he never said it, it only hung silently in the air, waiting as he rose from his gloomy corner of fiction and obeyed her request, walking by her and smiling a faint smile that seemed to be all that was left of her husband.

"Guess I've been burning the midnight oil," He grinned, snuggling in beside her, his hand making a slow trail across her shoulder, the touch becoming harder, more urgent as it moved down her side. She shifted uneasily; there were no more headaches, no more PMS weeks left in the month. Their marriage had always been passionate and she couldn't deny herself any longer than she could deny him, but there was something about the thought of giving herself to this hybrid personality that seemed to have sprouted eagerly from Starke's bones that chilled her. The touch that had been gentle and strategic was gone, exchanged for something hard and shocking, like electricity. It was exciting, but it was polluted and even though she wasn't a devout or Christian woman, she could feel the sin rising out of Thad's kisses. She could taste the Bourbon, or maybe Jack; she wasn't a big drinker herself and the tang of nicotine was layered over the flavour and the scent of it, making it hard to discern. She closed her eyes and clung to him, trying to imagine he hadn't started drinking and smoking again, trying to cling to the memory of nights containing the exact same events, but much more enjoyable than this one. He shifted against her as if he enjoyed her discomfort, as if it were a request and Elizabeth pushed herself away from the present into her thoughts. Maybe she could tell herself that she was cheating, that this was some desolate hotel room alongside the interstate and the man she was with was a rough trucker with a hard edge and a taste for harder liquor. The thought only shook her more.

The next morning she watched as the twins and what remained of their father sat playing in the living room, noting how they adored him. She supposed they sensed a fellow twin and remembered again the way George had held them without a word from either. As if he was their father, she noted, they trusted him because their father trusted him, because their father liked him and was attached to him, soul to soul.

She put her head in one shaking hand, looking sorrowfully down at her bruised wrist. They trusted him because he _was_ their father. The man who sat with them now looked up, his eyes a strong combination of adoration and of a half formed, truly sinister plot, George had been the dark half, and now that he was no longer trapped in a physical form, he had rejoined the whole. And he was killing Thad Beaumont the same way her husband had killed him. By smoking, drinking and turning what were once opposites into truly identical twins.

I apologize for any grammatical errors.


End file.
